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US Politics: Russian Roulette Republican Style


Fragile Bird

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2 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

So, yet another moment for me to revisit my pre-election take that, though insane in all other areas, Trump differed from standard right-wing positions on just 2 issues: he didn’t really care much about sexuality and was kinda neutral on Israel. Trying to remember how I got those impressions. 

That's still the case, but there's too many points to score by pretending to care.

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2 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

Damn, when you put it that way...

I guess my view is that Trump exacerbated by perhaps 20-30 years the inevitable decline of the US, and made it much less likely that the US is particularly notable in the world (unlike, say, if the US has united happily with the EU against China, which seems basically impossible now). I think we'll see more autocratic countries, but autocracy doesn't mean fascism necessarily, nor does it mean a bad quality of life for most people. I've brought up Singapore in the past as an example of a place that is almost entirely autocratic and is also one of the best places to live on virtually every spectrum due to their focus on data, experts, research and bureacracy. I think we'll see more of that.

But I don't think we'll see a very good America, and I think that the US will eventually be hit by a very big economic collapse that affects the world and does not recover nicely afterwards. The US will continue to have crumbling infrastructure, widening inequality, poor education and militant states against each other, and I think we'll see a reversion to state's rights where states have significantly more latitude to offer rules - and those rules are largely going to be dictated by what corporations reside there. You'll probably have a pretty big brain drain from the US to other places, and the cycle will continue. 

But the world? The world will continue, and the world won't blow up, and we'll solve things. Just not in a US-centric way. 

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23 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

For America?  Nope.  We're done.  It's just waiting for the inevitable collapse at this point.

I wasn't really planning to have biological kids to begin with, but I've become more firm about it in recent months.  It's more important than ever that people who are able look into fostering because with the break down of social safety nets, the pending failing economy, the opioid epidemic, rise of white supremacy, etc, families are going to be struggling hard and children are going to suffer tons.  

Dibs on Oregon, California, and the Alaska Panhandle.

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36 minutes ago, Relic said:

Ok, honest question....does anyone have any hope a this point? 

I harbor sincere fear that the state will either itself murder me and my family in the next several years, or stand by passively or even encouragingly while others do.

So, not a completely rosy outlook, no.

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2 minutes ago, Fez said:

Jeff Flake making a campaign contribution to Doug Jones. 

It's nice that $100 is the going rate to be able the claim "country first" after providing a key vote for a nightmare tax bill that threatens the lives and livelihoods of millions of his fellow citizens.

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45 minutes ago, Fez said:

 Sure do. I'll have less if Democrats don't make significant gains in the midterms, but even then I'll have some hope. Hope for a technological solution to prevent the worst of global warming and hope for cooler military heads to prevent nuclear war; and anything beyond those two things is eventually reversible. Arc of the universe is long and all that.

The arc of the universe is long, indeed (at least based in the human perception of time) , but the arc of humanity is probably very very limited. 

Personally I see the USA sliding into an authoritarian dystopia that scares the shit out of me. I'm not writing off the 2018 elections but i have almost no confidence that they will be conducted without corruption, and safeguarded from influence of those what would twist the results to favor the fascists currently running our government.

After last year's election I told my friend with whom i left the USA with 4 years ago that there wont be a 2020 presidential election. She thought i was being overly dramatic at the time  (i admit to being a bit of a drama queen). But i really don't know if i was wrong. Some of you guys see the ending of 2017 as being better than the beginning, and I'd like to understand why that is, exactly. We are seeing the fabric of democracy unraveling very quickly, and once it goes I'm not sure how democracy outside of the USA will survive. I personally have absolutely no intentions of every returning to America on a full time basis, and I might go as far as to renounce my citizenship, but i have a growing dread that the fallout from this shit show will lead to an end of the EU as well. 

Anyway, im rambling. I'll leave you with this video of Bill Maher discussing the possibility of Trump winning, and calling what is happening now a "slow moving right wing coup". He was absolutely right. (Weirdly enough its a Brietbart article, which i just now noticed. )

http://www.breitbart.com/video/2016/11/04/maher-slow-moving-right-wing-coup-in-us-i-dont-trust-nc-gop-not-to-hack-voting-machines/ 

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3 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

Will he even mail it?

Also, where is his county over party when he's voting to fuck the majority of the country?

Yes, he'll mail it. Flake is a decent dude.

Flake isn't going to vote country over party on the tax bill when he fundamentally believes in what the Republicans sell on tax reform. That to him is the country and party. He's a Republican after all. 

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13 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Oh yes, definitely. 

I think a lot of ideals are going to die, and I think that a lot of people's lives will be worse - but I also think that the overall life value of people has increased tremendously over the world. In 100 years the world will be polluted and an ecological mess in a lot of ways, but humans will figure out a way to survive and thrive, though perhaps in real messy ways. 

Another way to put it is this: we are coming very quickly to the point where preparing a person to work for a living is just not that important in the grand scheme of things, and every human will be able to live without requiring to have a job. (It's going to be a messy ride to get there, but it's the general trend that is only going to increase). That's going to change the world in incredible ways, but one of the best ways is that it's going to let people be very creative. Every society with a surplus of time has shown increasing artistic value, and there's going to be an explosion of that. I think that's pretty cool. 

Yea, I kinda look at this era as a bump in the road that unfortunately all of us have to live through.  It kinda seems to me that the old guard is consolidating wealth and power in a frenzy while they still can, but I do think the band will snap back the other way.  There are many factors to look at, the increasing effectiveness of renewable energy sources, US demographic trends, the fact that a very large number of 'millennials' distrust capitalism because of the selfishness of the previous couple generations, and rapid advances in AI and automation likely taking out entire industries in the near future. 

The scary part, to me, is when technology replaces human labor on a large enough scale to create a crisis (and we are already moving in that direction) that there will be very tenacious resistance to any serious and meaningful remedies.  Current attitudes toward welfare subsidies and wealth redistribution will need a serious tweaking.  

I'm reasonably optimistic on the environmental stuff though.  I think that the battle to cling to fossil fuels has already been lost on the upcoming generation and that with renewables getting better and better the economics of the situation will continue to pick up steam and help drive the issue.  Trump is 100% a temporary setback in this department.  It'll still be a while before we're done w/ fossil fuels, but we're going to see a steady (and possibly rapid) decline over the next decades.  

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2 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Flake isn't going to vote country over party on the tax bill when he fundamentally believes in what the Republicans sell on tax reform. That to him is the country and party. He's a Republican after all. 

I'm just wondering why he's so cheap.  Can't spring for the whole $2700 individual limit.  Fiscal conservative indeed.

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6 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

It's nice that $100 is the going rate to be able the claim "country first" after providing a key vote for a nightmare tax bill that threatens the lives and livelihoods of millions of his fellow citizens.

 

1 minute ago, Dr. Pepper said:

Will he even mail it?

Also, where is his county over party when he's voting to fuck the majority of the country?

I don't think that's a fair criticism. Flake is extremely conservative (last I looked he was the third most conservative in the senate by voting record) and votes as such; he is wrong about the tax bill, but I think he does believe it's the right move for the country (and he nearly derailed it anyway by joining Corker in complaining about the deficit impact).

There's a difference between trying to advance conservative policy goals and valuing winning elections over anything else. Flake has always tried to advance conservative policy goals, but he's consistently been unhappy about the "winning over everything" ethos. He previously endorsed Jones, which already puts him miles ahead of every other Republican official, and now he's going so far as to make a campaign contribution. It's a big deal.

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5 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Yes, he'll mail it. Flake is a decent dude.

Errr, this isn't supported by evidence.  

Quote

Flake isn't going to vote country over party on the tax bill when he fundamentally believes in what the Republicans sell on tax reform. That to him is the country and party. He's a Republican after all. 

Yes, but being a Republican and caring about the country are contradictory.  You can't be or do both.  

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1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Oh yes, definitely. 

I think a lot of ideals are going to die, and I think that a lot of people's lives will be worse - but I also think that the overall life value of people has increased tremendously over the world. In 100 years the world will be polluted and an ecological mess in a lot of ways, but humans will figure out a way to survive and thrive, though perhaps in real messy ways. 

Another way to put it is this: we are coming very quickly to the point where preparing a person to work for a living is just not that important in the grand scheme of things, and every human will be able to live without requiring to have a job. (It's going to be a messy ride to get there, but it's the general trend that is only going to increase). That's going to change the world in incredible ways, but one of the best ways is that it's going to let people be very creative. Every society with a surplus of time has shown increasing artistic value, and there's going to be an explosion of that. I think that's pretty cool. 

I'd forgotten how wonderful the grapes of wrath was as a story of a society with a surplus of time resulting in a flourishing of the arts for the Joads.

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52 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Oh yes, definitely. 

I think a lot of ideals are going to die, and I think that a lot of people's lives will be worse - but I also think that the overall life value of people has increased tremendously over the world. In 100 years the world will be polluted and an ecological mess in a lot of ways, but humans will figure out a way to survive and thrive, though perhaps in real messy ways. 

Another way to put it is this: we are coming very quickly to the point where preparing a person to work for a living is just not that important in the grand scheme of things, and every human will be able to live without requiring to have a job. (It's going to be a messy ride to get there, but it's the general trend that is only going to increase). That's going to change the world in incredible ways, but one of the best ways is that it's going to let people be very creative. Every society with a surplus of time has shown increasing artistic value, and there's going to be an explosion of that. I think that's pretty cool. 

Well...I hope you're right. our vision of the future is definitely brighter than mine (and apparently Ini's too).

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2 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

I'd forgotten how wonderful the grapes of wrath was as a story of a society with a surplus of time resulting in a flourishing of the arts for the Joads.

Honestly I've never read it, but I'm sure that this is an incredibly cutting remark to me and I bow to your clever literate wit. :)

But in all seriousness - I think you'll see a whole lot of people out there become celebrities and some amount of fortune with very little up-front cost, doing things that they think are cool. We're already seeing some of that with the internet, and I think this trend will only continue as more people lose their jobs or go to a gig-based economy. 

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